Talking Headways Podcast: Bikes of Ill Repute

Jeff Wood and I are back with episode 8 of the Talking Headways podcast. We talk about Los Angeles Metro’s decision not to extend light rail all the way to LAX (and what they’re doing instead), plus some analysis of what rail can really do in a city as spread-out as LA. Then we head east to Princeton, New Jersey, where we debunk the thesis that low sales of luxury condos somehow equates to a rejection of walkability. And finally, back west to Seattle, which finds itself with a similar problem to LA: how to bring more density to settled single-family areas?

Why the obsession with a Metro rail line spur directly into LAX? With how large an airport LAX is, you’d STILL need a people mover, or else force people to walk at least a half-mile from any boarding gate to a spur that would be prohibitively expensive. I just worry that the obsession with the idea of a rail line directly under the airport is taking away from a discussion about the practicality of this idea, let alone the sheer cost. Also, the planned Century/Aviation station where the under-discussion people mover would connect is the closest a train could get without requiring huge expense for tunneling beneath the airport and/or acquiring significant portions of new right-of-way.